HEAD COACH

Marco Silva

Head Coach

Marco Alexandre Saraiva da Silva, or simply ‘Marco Silva’. The 37-year-old coach (12 July, 1977) was born in Lisbon, Portugal. A retired footballer who played in the right-back position, he first represented Belenenses and a number of other Portuguese clubs such as Campomaiorense, Trofense, Atletico Club de Portugal, Rio Ave, Braga ‘B’, Salguiros, Odivelas and finally spending six seasons at Lisbon-based club Estoril Praia, where he took over as Director of Football after retiring from professional football in 2011.

Shortly afterwards, he was assigned as head coach, where he would remain until 2014. In his first season as head coach, he guided the club to promotion as winners of the Segunda Liga to the first division of Portuguese football ‘Primeira Liga’ in 2012. In the 2012-13 season, Estoril finished 5th with 13 wins, six draws and 11 defeats, thus qualifying to the UEFA Europa League qualifying stages.

The 2013-14 season proved to be better as Estoril finished in 4thplace with 15 wins, nine draws and only six defeats, again achieving qualification to the UEFA Europa League, this time straight to the group stage.
His achievement at Estoril led to his appointment as head coach at Sporting Lisbon ahead of the 2014-15 season. In his only season in charge of Sporting he led the club to a third-place finish in the league just behind champions Benfica and 2nd-placed Porto, losing only two games against Porto and Vitória de Guimarães.